LOS ANGELES — After losing more regular-season games than they had since 2007 and in the first round of the playoffs for the first time since that same season, on Friday, the Lakers lost again.
This time, they lost Dwight Howard.
After an afternoon in which Howard's decision seemed to be bouncing from the Rockets to the Lakers and back again, the Lakers put out a statement at 7:30 p.m. PT confirming that the big man would not be returning to Los Angeles. Come July 10, he will sign with the Houston Rockets. USA Today's Sam Amick first reported Howard’s decision.
"We have been informed of Dwight's decision to not return to the Lakers," Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said in a statement. "Naturally we're disappointed. However, we will now move forward in a different direction with the future of the franchise and, as always, will do our best to build the best team possible, one our great Lakers fans will be proud to support. To Dwight, we thank him for his time and consideration, and for his efforts with us last season. We wish him the best of luck on the remainder of his NBA career."
It was the trendy choice, the innovative choice, the riskier choice, and it took a fair amount of effort and waffling, it seems, on Howard's part. After the news of his signing initially broke, multiple sources reported that Howard again waffled over the money he was leaving on the table, eventually flying to Los Angeles before informing the Lakers that he would indeed bolt to Houston.
Howard's free-agency decision has been at the forefront of the NBA's news cycle since before the Lakers' disappointing season ended in April, and by the time free agency began on July 1, his field of suitors had been narrowed to the Lakers, Rockets, Mavericks, Hawks and Warriors.
Houston, poised to be able to clear cap space with a few quick moves, had been named as a potential landing spot for months, as had Dallas and Atlanta. Golden State entered the mix as a serious contender in May. All four of those teams, in addition to the Lakers, met with Howard during the first days of free agency, offering their pitches and then scheming to shed salary to make room for the coveted big man.
The Lakers, who put up billboards around Los Angeles urging Howard to stay during the week before July 1, got the last say of the free-agent center's five meetings. However, Kupchak did speak with Howard briefly in the first minutes of free agency before he attended his first formal meeting, with the Rockets.
Howard, who was the No. 1 pick in the 2004 draft, played the first eight seasons of his career in Orlando before sparking a months-long feud with the Magic that culminated in his trade to the Lakers in August 2012. The other two major cogs in the three-team trade, Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bynum, are also free agents this summer and seem unlikely to return to the teams to which they were dealt. In fact, Iguodala was the only player in the bunch who had any kind of positive transformative effect on his new team.
A seven-time All-Star, Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year award for three consecutive seasons, from 2009-11. He's led the league in rebounding five times and in blocks twice, and he made the All-NBA First Team each year from 2008-12. In 2009, after averaging 20.6 points and 13.8 rebounds per game, Howard led the Magic to the NBA Finals, where they lost in five games to the Lakers. Howard's best season in the league, arguably, came in 2010-11, when he averaged a career high 22.9 points and 14.1 rebounds, the second-best such mark of his career.
Howard suffered from back problems throughout the 2011-12 season, his final year in Orlando. He played in 54 of the team's 66 games before ending his season in April to have surgery on a herniated disk. He rehabbed throughout the summer, missing the London Olympics, but was not at full strength when he began his Lakers career in the fall. After missing much of the preseason, Howard was ready when the regular season began, but between the effects of his back injury and a torn labrum he suffered in January 2013, he was never at full strength during his season in Los Angeles.
By mid-March, however, Howard's production had picked up. Over the Lakers' final 22 games — including their four-game playoff run — Howard averaged 19.4 points per game, up from his average of 17.1 on the season. He shot 59.5 percent over that period, also above his season average of 57.8 percent. Even with mediocre — by his standards — numbers, Howard still led the NBA in rebounding, averaging 12.4 per game, although some might chalk that up to Kevin Love, one of the league’s other top rebounders, missing most of the season with injuries.
If Howard is fully healthy, which he seems to be, pairing him with Harden in Houston should make the Rockets a threat in the Western Conference, especially if they're able to acquire a third superstar, as Howard has reportedly requested. The Lakers, by contrast are left with no healthy superstar and a dearth of cap space, and Howard’s decision points to a rebuilding year in Los Angeles, however much the Lakers hope to avoid that terminology.
